Vertically align text within input field of fixed-height without display: table or padding?

Question

The line-height property usually takes care of vertical alignment, but not with inputs. Is there a way to automatically center text without playing around with padding?

Answer 1

Late to the party, but the current answers won't work if you have box-sizing: border-box set (which a lot of people do for form elements these days).

Just reset the box sizing for IE8 to box-sizing: content-box; then use one of the padding / height answer.